


Tapes

by BedeliaAnneRavenscroft



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Cancer Arc, Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, Episode: s05e02 Redux II, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mainly angst, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 02:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7557013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BedeliaAnneRavenscroft/pseuds/BedeliaAnneRavenscroft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot set around the time of Redux (Season 5 Episodes 1 and 2) inspired by a tumblr prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tapes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt by prompts-for-the-otp on tumblr.

 

It started the day of Scully's diagnosis. She called him to the hospital, wanting him at her side, and told him her death sentence: cancer, inoperable.

He brought flowers, but they didn't seem like enough – nothing would be; nothing could make up for the time she would lose, the years she would never gain. So he recorded a short message, an _I love you_ of sorts, though he never spoke the words explicitly.

When he gave her the cassette tape he expected her to laugh in his face or -worse- break down in tears; she did neither. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek: chaste and unexpected, it brought tears to his eyes.

The next day she returned the tape, and on it was a new message recorded by her. She said nothing important, but the sound of her voice alone was enough to make the tape precious. He recorded his next message on a blank tape, keeping the other in a locked drawer in his desk at work.

Each day one would bring a tape, on it a newly recorded message, and hand it to the other to listen to and reply to the next day. Though they never told the other, each swapped the tape for a blank and surreptitiously kept the replies they received.

Despite all that went on around them, ignoring the risks, they never forgot their newly formed tradition. As time went on the messages grew longer, each asking pointless questions for the other to answer, simply to receive a longer reply.

Then one day there were no more tapes.

On the last tape he gave her, Mulder told a cheesy joke – he hoped she laughed, prayed she recorded it so he could hear the sound himself.

But she did not give the tape to him. She never had the chance to.

Nobody called him: everyone thought he was dead, which was what he wanted. But the second the news reached him, his mind was made; he ran through the hospital's corridors, frantic in his haste to find her, scared he was too late. Then he saw her.

The monitor at her side beeped at a slow and steady pace. Wires protruded from her skin. Tubes snaked over her pale, still form.

Their time left would be brief, he realised then, if there was any time left at all.

Her mother and brother came to sit beside her while they could.

Scully's mother held something out to him as he left the hospital: a cassette tape with the words _To Mulder_ written on it in Scully's spidery handwriting.

He listened to the tape with tears streaming down his cheeks. She laughed at his joke, told one of her own, and said she was sorry their time together was coming to an end.

 


End file.
